Reckless in Innocence ~ A Free Historical Romance story ~ Part Thirty-nine

Reckless in Innocence

for my Historical Romance readers ❤ © Jane Lark Publishing rights belong to Jane Lark, this should not be recreated in any form without prior consent from Jane Lark

Reckless in Innocence

(an early Jane Lark story that is not at all associated with the Marlow Intrigues)

~ Read the earlier parts listed in the index

Marcus

“How is Miss Derwent?” Marcus strode across the room when the doctor entered with Angela.

“There is no serious harm to Miss Derwent or the child, Your Grace. She must rest though. I have advised her to take bed rest for two or three days and afterwards she must take things easy, she has been badly bruised. I will call again tomorrow to see how she is. Your Grace, Lady Campbell.” He bowed to each of them.

“Thank you, Dr Saunders.” Marcus shook the man’s hand. Relief brimming over inside him. “Would you like a drink before you leave?”

“Thank you, but no, I should be going.”

“I shall see you out,” Angela responded quickly.

Marcus followed them, but in the hall, he turned to the stairs. As his hand gripped the newel post of the banister Angela called back across her shoulder. “Leave her to sleep, Marcus. It is what she needs.” His foot hovered for a moment on the bottom step, but then as Angela turned back to speak to the doctor, he immediately continued his ascent. He could not wait.

He entered Elizabeth’s room a few moments later. He had not knocked. If she was resting he did not wish to wake her. He shut the door quietly. For a minute he stood there watching her. She lay beneath the covers, curled towards him, her head on the pillow and her eyes closed. Her skin appeared the same colour as the sheet, she was so pale, except for where the cruel purple bruising stained her cheek. He breathed deeply. This had been his fault. He did not expect to receive her forgiveness. He walked over to the bed, took her fingers from the covers and brought them to his lips. “Sorry,” he whispered, even though she was asleep.

Elizabeth

Elizabeth heard Marcus’s whisper, “Sorry.” His warm breath ran over the back of her fingers. and then he laid her hand back on top of the covers.

She was too tired to respond, too exhausted, uncertain and ready to cry. Nor did she open her eyes. She listened to him move away, then the door opened and closed. It sounded like a silent goodbye.

He’d cradled her in his arms all the way to his brother’s home, but he’d not said anything other than to use her name over and over again while he brushed the hair from her forehead. She’d fallen asleep in his arms. She turned over slowly, pain lanced through her side and a tear stain streaked down her cheek.

She did not really wish to be alone. But the worst thing was, she did not know what Marcus wanted. Did he want her? Or had he only come to save her?

She cradled the pain of that thought – too tired to contemplate it – then tumbled into the escape of the darkness of sleep, still silently weeping.

Chapter Sixteen

Elizabeth

Elizabeth leaned back onto the pile of pillows Angela had placed behind her back. Elizabeth’s movement was stiff. She ached all over from Lord Percy’s rough treatment, and one shoulder burned with a sharp pain where she’d pulled free from his hold. Yet despite the pains she’d slept for hours missing breakfast and luncheon. When she’d woken Angela had been sitting beside her, working quietly on a piece of embroidery, she’d set it aside and then ordered Elizabeth a light repast. Elizabeth’s stomach had growled embarrassingly when it arrived. She’d hardly eaten for days let alone slept, due to her fear.

She thought of Marcus – of how he had held her in the carriage, and come and kissed her hand and apologised so silently.

“Would you like a cup of tea, Elizabeth?”

She nodded in answer to Angela’s question as a smile lifted her lips a little, but the smile died and fell as pain seared through the cut from Lord Percy’s ring, and gripped at the bruising on her cheek. Misery clasped in her throat too, as though the tears she tried to hold back became a lump she could not swallow.

“Marcus has asked to see you. Will you let him in?” Angela handed Elizabeth the china cup.

Elizabeth met Angela’s gaze. She had discovered a friend if nothing else. Hope slipped into Elizabeth’s blood as she answered. “Yes. I wished to see him.” Her heart pulsed harder. “I thought that he’d gone.”

“Gone… Nonsense. He has not left the house, nor slept, since he brought you here, in case you should need him.”

The cup in Elizabeth’s lap wobbled on its saucer. “Is he angry with me still?”

“Angry…” Angela smiled slightly, the look sympathetic. But then her eyebrows lifted and she shook her head with an expression of frustration. “Did he say nothing to you when he brought you here?”

Elizabeth shook her head in reply as the tears rose from her throat and gathered in her eyes.

Angela leaned forward for a moment and patted Elizabeth’s forearm. “He is not. I believe he is angry with himself however. Love can change a man.”

“He does not love me. He told me he wanted nothing more to do with me the night I came here.”

“Ah, la! Men! They do not know their own minds. It has been love with Marcus from the beginning. If he told you anything else then he has been lying to himself. A man does not spend every day beside you if it is not love. He has been camped out here too, waiting on a moment of your time. He snuck up here when you were sleeping but did not wish to wake you.”

“It is not due to love. It is because of guilt. That is why he hovered near me for so many weeks before he invited me Larchfield.” Elizabeth’s gaze fell to her stomach, as she felt colour touch her skin. “He did not know about the child, but he felt guilty because of the cause of it.”

When Elizabeth looked up, Angela was looking at Elizabeth’s hand. Elizabeth had unconsciously begun to hold the cup with one hand, while the other stroked across her stomach.

Angela looked up. “And so he should feel guilty. He also feels guilty for bringing you to Lord Percy’s attention – and he should feel guilty for that too.” Angela’s retort was sharp, and the little nod she gave Elizabeth said that she was glad Marcus felt guilty. “But now I think he wishes to make things right, and do what he ought to have done long ago.”

“He will offer to marry me.”

“Yes, of course.”

“I do not want him to ask me. I do not want him to feel forced to marry me. He will hate me if he does.”

Angela leaned forward and gripped Elizabeth’s hand, as it lay over her stomach. “He does not hate you, and he will not. You misjudged Lord Percy. Do you not think that you are also, perhaps, misjudging Marcus?”

Elizabeth slid her hand free, and took a sip of tea, struggling to control her tears. Surely if he loved her he would have said so and he would not have turned her away when she’d needed him.

Yet Angela had warned her against Lord Percy, she had known his true nature, and she was closer to Marcus so she must know his. Elizabeth looked at Angela and asked the question she should have asked weeks before. “Why did you warn me against Lord Percy? What do you know about him?”

Hesitation hovered in Angela’s eyes. “I do not speak of it. I closed that door years ago. But I will trust you not to speak of it and perhaps it will help you to understand the Campbells’ capacity to love.”

Angela’s fingers brushed across her skirt, in a gesture of uncertainty, then she rose from the chair and sat on the edge of the bed, half turned towards Elizabeth, as if by sitting closer she would prevent others from hearing. Her fingers gripped her skirt and the covers beside her hip, as though she needed something to cling to. “My mother was…” She took a breath, fighting the emotion which Elizabeth could see in Angela’s face. “… the mistress of Lord Percy’s stepfather. Lord Percy’s father died when he was but a baby. Lord Mortimer was the father he knew. There are four years between myself and him in age. I met Lord Percy in London the year that he left the College in Cambridge. Lord Mortimer is my father. He had educated me and brought me up to be like a lady, even though I was illegitimate -”

At Elizabeth’s sudden in drawn breath, Angela waved her hand as if to dismiss the word as unimportant. But surely to have been illegitimate must have made Angela’s life difficult…

“His relationship with my mother was not well-known, but he’d raised me as his daughter, and when I came of age, he did not hide me away. I called him Papa in public. I am illegitimate, but then I did not understand what it meant, I lived a life that was no different to others. My father came and went, but all I saw were the moments we lived as a family, and the days I spent with him, and when I came of age he took me to the theatre and to Vauxhall, and other beautiful places, full of beautiful people. I never thought that anyone would look down on me because of the circumstances of my birth. I was full of confidence, believing myself no different.

“I did not understand the connection when I first met Christian. Papa introduced us at the theatre one evening. But Papa explained the relationship on the way home in the carriage. It was a shock, to discover the life I had thought was normal was a lie, and a my mother a secret my father kept. But he claimed we, my mother and me, were the family he loved. Christian’s mother, he claimed to have married for wealth, property and status. He said that men had to do such things. They could not marry who they wished, and he did not love Christian, who was not his real son.

“But I felt hurt, and in need of something to help me understand this new reality – I saw only that I had discovered a brother who I had not known of. We began to see a lot of each other. He would call for me at home and take me out in his curricle. He can be charming when he chooses and foolishly I turned to him to grieve for the family life I’d thought I had and felt as though I’d lost.” Angela took a breath and shivered a little as her gaze dropped to look at her fingers which clung to the bed covers. Then she swallowed before saying more quietly. “He took advantage of my distress in a way a man should not. He treated me badly. He thought he had a right to me, to use me, because my mother was his stepfather’s mistress.” She looked back at Elizabeth. “I trust you never to speak of this…”

Elizabeth nodded, as she bit her lip against the shock which made her wish to exclaim in horror. Poor Angela…

“He threatened me, and made me swear never to tell my father. He told me that people would know it was my fault, because of what my mother was. I believed every threat he made to me, and suffered it all…” She took another breath.

“Jason rescued me. We had seen each other only once before, when we had been introduced. He had been with his aunt. I met him in the street. I had just walked away from Christian’s rooms and I was crying. He asked what was wrong. But I could not speak, and so he took my arm and walked beside me a little way, then took me to a quiet park. We talked for hours. In the end I told him everything. He did not shun me. He offered to help me. He made a plan and the next day he and Marcus took me away. I married Jason four weeks later. I never thought that he could love me, not after what had happened, what Christian had done to me, but instead it has made him love me more I think.” Angela gripped Elizabeth’s hand again, and her gaze held Elizabeth’s with a steady reassurance. “The Campbells know how to love, Elizabeth, as many people do not. Marcus’s heart is pure despite how he has lived his life. He was wounded by his past, as I was, only differently. I believe he would have chosen to offer you marriage of his own accord, given time. Do not think he is merely forced by this circumstance. It was a choice that he would have come to on his own eventually. Without this it would have taken him far longer than it ought to, that is all. You love him, do you not?”

“Yes.” Elizabeth nodded once. “I have always loved him. But so many times it has felt like a curse not a blessing.”

“It will be a blessing. Let him ask and do not refuse… Give him the chance to prove his feelings for you. His feelings are not only guilt, I know it, yet looking at you now, how could he not feel some?” She let go of Elizabeth’s hand and rose, sweeping aside the things she’d just spoken, as though she brushed them back beneath the carpet of the past. “Shall I let him come to you?”

Elizabeth nodded. But she knew what the outcome must be. She could not accept him. She was not desperate, as Angela had been, not now she was safe. She could not take him when he did not love her, nor even really wish to marry her. Jason and Angela had offered to help, she must take that path instead, and Marcus would give her money for her keep, she knew that.

Angela was about to turn away, when Elizabeth’s fingers rose to smooth her hair. Angela turned back and caught hold of her hand. “You are beautiful, Elizabeth.”

Tears gripped at the back of Elizabeth’s throat as Angela took the cup from Elizabeth’s other hand and set it aside then turned to go and send Marcus up.

To be continued…

If you cannot wait until next week for more of Jane Lark’s writing there’s plenty to read right now, and do not miss your chance for the great Magical Weddings summer reading box set, containing Jane’s super sexy story The Jealous Love of a Scoundrel “If you love Reckless, you will love the Jealous Love of a Scoundrel 😀 ” 99c or 99p

To read the Marlow Intrigues series, you can start anywhere, but the actual order is listed below ~ and click like to follow my Facebook Page not to miss anything…

The Marlow Intrigues

The Lost Love of Soldier ~ The Prequel #1 ~ A Christmas Elopement began it all

The Illicit Love of a Courtesan #2

Capturing The Love of an Earl ~ A Free Novella #2.5

The Passionate Love of a Rake #3

The Desperate Love of a Lord ~ A second Free Novella #3.5

The Scandalous Love of a Lord #4

The Dangerous Love of a Rogue #5

The Secret Love of a Gentleman #6

Jane’s books can be ordered from most booksellers in paperback and, yes, there are more to come 🙂

Go to the index

For

the story of the real courtesan who inspired The Illicit Love of a Courtesan,
another free short story, about characters from book #2, A Lord’s Scandalous Love,
the prequel excerpts for book #3 The Scandalous Love of a Duke

Jane Lark is a writer of authentic, passionate and emotional Historical and New Adult Romance stories, and the author of a No.1 bestselling Historical Romance novel in America, ‘The Illicit Love of a Courtesan’.Click here to find out more about Jane’s books, and see Jane’s website www.janelark.co.uk to learn more about Jane. Or click ‘like’ on Jane’s Facebook page to see photo’s and learn historical facts from the Georgian, Regency and Victorian eras, which Jane publishes there. You can also follow Jane on twitter at @janelark

Reckless in Innocence ~ A Free Historical Romance story ~ Part Thirty-eight

Reckless in Innocence

for my Historical Romance readers ❤ © Jane Lark Publishing rights belong to Jane Lark, this should not be recreated in any form without prior consent from Jane Lark

Reckless in Innocence

(an early Jane Lark story that is not at all associated with the Marlow Intrigues)

~ Read the earlier parts listed in the index

Chapter Fifteen

Marcus

“Wait! Halt!” Marcus yelled to his brother as his gaze followed the numbers on the properties lining the street. They were close. Fifteen, seventeen, nineteen. The address Jason had copied in the solicitor’s office was twenty-three.

It was a tall, narrow, terraced house.

Marcus looked at his brother. Jason’s gaze was on the property too, and his expression grim. No one knew better than Jason how depraved Percy could be when he chose. Nausea stirred in Marcus’s stomach as they drew closer. There were only two windows in which there was any light. They were on the first floor.

They could be in bed…

The thought struck Marcus like a dagger through the gut.

His eyes hovered on the windows in which light flickered, hoping beyond hope he was wrong.

How many times had Percy bedded her? How had she been treated?

Marcus thought of Angela – the state she’d been in when Jason had introduced Marcus to her. She’d been quiet and nervous – afraid.

There was movement in the window above him. He couldn’t see who or what, but a shadow had crossed the light.

He freed his feet from the stirrups, lifted a leg over the horse’s rump, then slipped down from his saddle, dropping onto the cobbled street, as quietly as he could. Jason did the same.

Marcus lifted his finger to his lips, telling his brother to stay silent. Then tied his reins to the railing. Once his horse was safely tethered, Marcus crossed to the far side of the street and looked up. He could see into the room, although he could see little but a picture on the far wall and the flickering candlelight that made the dark become a frame too, making the view into the room like a picture itself. The neighbouring window which was also lit seemed to be a different room.

Jason stood at Marcus’s side. They glanced at each other, then looked up once more. This was the house. But which room?

Everything about him calmed, he felt as though he stood in the eye of a storm, like a boat becalmed on a still sea. He was in reach of her, but he did not want to rush his fences and err now. She may not be in either lit room, or even in a room at the front of the house…

He could still see movement in the room on the left, hurried movement in the form of a shadow passing across the walls. Then he saw her, just a glimpse, for a brief moment, but it was long enough to know it was her – and enough to know she was frantic – and afraid. She swept back a lock of fallen hair and glanced about the room then moved out of sight.

He looked at Jason. Jason caught hold his arm and nodded up to the other lit room. Percy walked towards the window looking bloody pleased with himself, with a glass in one hand.

Hell and damnation. He’d seen them.

Elizabeth

Elizabeth had looked at everything, there was nothing heavy, apart from a chair. But if she picked up a chair she could not hide and have surprise. The only thing which she could find that she could lift above her head to hit him with was her silver plated hairbrush. It was not heavy but it was hard. She gripped its handle and, with her other hand, swept back her hair as she walked past the window. Her hand shook as it lowered and she crossed the room to stand behind the door, her heart pounding.

Lord Percy’s footsteps crossed the floor in the room next door at an urgent pace. “Elizabeth!”

She lifted her hand, holding up the brush and gripped the doorknob. It turned within her fingers. She stepped back as the door thrust open.

When he entered she brought down her arm with as much force as she could. The back of the hairbrush struck his temple, but it had as much impact as a wet rag. He did not even flinch but caught her wrist in his fingers and twisted her arm.

“Ah!” A lance of pain shot up to her shoulder.

“You little trollop.” He dragged her out of the bedroom and into the sitting room. She tugged against his grip, fighting to be free, but his strength was beyond hers.

“Let me go.” Her fingers scratched his face, cutting into the skin beside his eye.

“Stop fighting for God sake.”

“Let me go!”

He pulled her around, twisting her arm so it was pinned behind her back, and pressed up towards her shoulders. The pain in her shoulder, elbow, and the wrist, where he gripped, was searing.

His other arm became a bar across her chest.

“Let me go!”

He dragged her backwards to a chair where he’d left his outdoor coat, she stumbled awkwardly, bucking against his grip, trying to pull away, even though it hurt her arm.

“Stop it!” he barked as he reached across her into the pocket of his coat.

The cold steel of a pistol pressed to her temple. “Stop fighting. Stay still. Or I will simply kill you. It will make things damned well easier.” His voice rung with determined truth. Stunned horror congealed in her blood and she stopped fighting, as he dragged her back again, towards the door.

Marcus

Marcus banged on the door with the side of his gloved fist, a hard heavy strike which jolted it. He needed to get in there. It opened inwards, revealing a giant of a man who stood like a wall between Marcus and Elizabeth. “Let us pass,” Marcus growled. The man was a mountain. “We are here to see Lord Percy. Move aside. I know for a fact, he is here.”

“And I know for a fact ‘e don’t want no visitors.” The mountain answered.

“And I do not give a damn what he wants!” Marcus withdrew his pistol from his coat pocket, but held it the wrong way around, gripping the handle in his fist. He used it to add weight and solidity to the punch he thrust into the man’s stomach. The mountain doubled over, coughing as Marcus pushed past him and ran up the stairs, two at a time. His pistol now gripped correctly in his hand.

Jason followed.

A door opened on the landing above them. Marcus looked up. Elizabeth. Her gaze grasped at his. “Marcus!”

Good God. His heart bled. Percy had his arm about her and a bloody pistol pointed at her head. He pulled her out on to the landing. He had her pinned against him somehow. “Stay back!”

Marcus slowed. He sensed Jason do the same. But Marcus did not stop moving – downstairs the noise suggested the doorman had recovered and was moving towards Jason. Marcus half turned on the stairs, spinning his aim to the mountain. “Stay back. Keep out of this.”

The man looked at the end of Marcus’s pistol and stilled, as Jason turned and aimed at the doorman too.

They had a bloody stand off. Marcus looked back at Elizabeth, and returned his aim to Percy. Percy was using her as a shield. Hell, Marcus was a reasonable shot but he was no marks man, he would not like to try for Percy when Elizabeth’s head was beside his.

Percy had not stopped moving; he continued backing away from the head of the stairs, along the landing. Marcus climbed another step. So did Jason.

“You would not dare.” Percy growled. “You would lose both her and the child.” My God. Percy dropped the tip of the pistol to Elizabeth’s stomach and pressed.

A chill raced across Marcus’s skin. He could see the convex curve which Percy pressed the pistol against, there was no doubt that what she’d said was true. She was carrying his child. She was. And now because of him, both Elizabeth and their child were at risk. Violent curses screamed in his head as he glanced at his brother, then back at Percy. Marcus climbed another step.

How could he get her away from Percy. The tip of Percy’s pistol lifted and pressed back against Elizabeth’s temple. It had left a red mark there when he’d taken it away. There was a red mark and bruising on her cheek, and her lip had been split. He tried to think, but internally he was too busy screaming curses at himself. “Elizabeth…” His voice echoed about the hall, ringing with pain, saying so much he could not speak; a hundred sorrys, a thousand I love yous and a promise for the future; a promise to be different. If he could get her out of this…

He climbed another step as Percy kept on backing her away. Percy was pulling her towards the entrance to the service stairs at the end of the landing.

Marcus judged the distance Percy had to the stairs, compared the distance he had to reach them.

Elizabeth

Even in this awful situation Elizabeth’s instinctual relief at the sight of Marcus flowed into her blood -, the warm feeling from when she’d known him as her sanctuary. Her stomach had turned a somersault at the first sight of him. She did not feel afraid anymore as her gaze clung to his. He’d come for her. The sound of his voice filled her with memories – good memories – she wanted to be held by him. To feel safe again.

“Elizabeth,” he said more quietly as he came to a halt at the top of the stairs, his gun aimed at Lord Percy, his gaze on her. His eyes were trying to communicate something she could not understand. Fear… Apology… Hope… Need…

“Percy, let her go.” The words were the order of Marcus’s brother, as his gun and his gaze focused on the doorman below.

“I do not think so,” Percy answered from behind her, the sick humour in his voice, mocking them. He continued stepping backwards, as she stumbled over each step. His breath ran across her shoulder in a harsh uneven rhythm.

“Don’t worry, Elizabeth.” Marcus took a step forward, his gaze reaching out to grasp her away from Lord Percy.

She glanced back over her shoulder as Lord Percy turned slightly. They were three steps from the door to the servants’ stairs. Her heart thumped as Marcus moved another two steps in her direction and Lord Percy hauled her back again. Lord Percy turned to look back at the door, and his hand which held the pistol, fell, reaching for the handle.

“Move!” Marcus yelled at her.

She ran forward tearing her wrist free of Lord Percy’s grip, twisting her arm still more. The pain roared as she ran to Marcus while behind her she heard Lord Percy open the door. Marcus ran towards her, his pistol still aimed beyond her. He caught her tight against his chest when she reached him and wrapped her arms about his neck. She looked back. Lord Percy disappeared through the servants’ door into the stairwell.

“You are safe?” Marcus said as she clung to him. Then he breathed against her ear. “What has he done to you?” The pistol’s mechanism clicked as he disarmed it, then the weapon was gone, hidden within his pocket, as his brother pushed past them.

Her gaze followed Lord Derwent, Jason, as he ran after Lord Percy, disappearing through the door.

Marcus’s fingers cupped her face, gently turning her gaze back to him. “I am sorry.” His gaze swept across her face, assessing her swollen lip, the bruising and redness on her skin.

When his arms slipped about her shoulders, she rested her temple against the strength of his chest, any anger she’d felt towards him ebbed away. He was her sanctuary again.

“You’re safe now. It’s over.”

Tears, which she’d not even noticed falling, became sobs. He swung her up off her feet, into his arms, then turned back to the stairs. The doorman stepped back, perhaps realising that he’d taken the wrong side.

Elizabeth clasped the lapel of Marcus’s coat. “Your brother?”

“Will see to Percy, and the horses. I am taking you home.”

“I have no home,” Elizabeth whispered on a sob as her arms slid about his neck once more, and her forehead pressed against his shoulder.

“You have a home now, for as long as you want it. Angela and Jason will take you in.”

“Your brother…” she asked in a small voice. Why not with you?

He looked down at her. “My sister-in-law will take care of you. Nothing will harm you there.”

It was not nausea which writhed inside her, nor was it fear – she was heart-sore. But she clutched his shoulders tighter as more tears fell. What had she thought? That he would marry her after this…

To be continued…

To read the Marlow Intrigues series, you can start anywhere, but the actual order is listed below ~ and click like to follow my Facebook Page not to miss anything…

The Marlow Intrigues

The Lost Love of Soldier ~ The Prequel #1 ~ A Christmas Elopement began it all

The Illicit Love of a Courtesan #2

Capturing The Love of an Earl ~ A Free Novella #2.5

The Passionate Love of a Rake #3

The Desperate Love of a Lord ~ A second Free Novella #3.5

The Scandalous Love of a Lord #4

The Dangerous Love of a Rogue #5

The Secret Love of a Gentleman #6

Jane’s books can be ordered from most booksellers in paperback and, yes, there are more to come 🙂

Go to the index

For

the story of the real courtesan who inspired The Illicit Love of a Courtesan,
another free short story, about characters from book #2, A Lord’s Scandalous Love,
the prequel excerpts for book #3 The Scandalous Love of a Duke